Pretty impressed how well that one turned out. Used SUNLU TPU in yellow with 200/50 degrees Celsius at 20mm/s speed on my Voxelab Aquila (upgraded PEI bed and DirectDrive, also used Filament drybox).
This filament to be exact:
Angebot: SUNLU TPU Filament, 1KG Flexibles 95A TPU 3D Drucker Filament 1.75mm Maßgenauigkeit +/- 0.03 mm, Hohe Liquidität und Elastizität, 1KG(2.2Lbs) Spule, TPU Filament für FDM 3D Drucker,TPU Gelb https://amzn.eu/d/7H5TLjr
That is crazy looking good, got a spool form https://dwdev.se Whit filament is that? Love the yellow color but cant seem to find it anywhere.
Sorry for the late answer. It’s this one:
Nice and clean looking result, great job!
Very nice. Did you model this yourself? If so, did you also have to model your phone or were you able to find a dimensionally accurate model somewhere else?
My iPhone 13 Mini case is now ready to be downloaded:
https://www.printables.com/de/model/542007-iphone-13-mini-case-with-lanyard-holes
Thanks for the follow up/link. I don’t have an iPhone 13 mini, but I am going to have a bunch of spare TPU soon and you got me thinking. As you said, it can take a bunch of iterations to get a great fit. I was curious if you had a secret sauce, but hearing that we follow a similar process was comforting.
It’s not perfectly easy, but if you are a little used to 3D programs like fusion360 and have a caliper, it’s perfectly doable. Oh and this here helped me getting the curves right:
https://www.printables.com/de/model/280185-fillet-radius-finder-innerouter-design-reference-r
Excellent link, thanks! And yup, time with calipers, fusion360, and practice gets you there.
Would it be possible to embed harder plastic bumpers/reinforcements from PETG or PLA inside the walls? I feel like that could make something like this even more useful
How drop resistant is it? I drop my phone multiple times daily, face first, on the side, on back, corners, etc.
If you drop your phone that much, I think this is the case you need: https://a.co/d/1fyszgF
:D
That’s awesome! My partner is interested in doing something like that as well.
Thank you! To be honest it was a bit of work to get my printer ready for TPU, but it’s absolutely worth it. Being able to print this material gives so much additional usecases for 3D printing. Absolutely recommend this!
What did you need to do to get your printer ready? Anything you’ve learned to make it easier a second time?
I think that heavily depends on the used printer, parts and filament.
But one tricky thing that comes to mind instantly was e-Steps. I got a metal dual gear Extruder and didn’t realize that the gear was smaller than the original. Because of that I had to change the e-steps in the printers firmware-settings so it knows how much it needs to turn in order to get one mm of filament through. As I didn’t know that I had some crazy underxtrusion and warping problems. Took quite a while to figure out (not only a problem with TPU).
But generally if your partner wants to get into TPU printing, I would get at least a direct drive upgrade. TPU is a flexible material and it’s better to press it in the Hotend as directly as possible. Also print very slow to get better results.
Thanks for the advice! Fortunately, our Fokoos comes with a direct drive, so that’s checked off already. I think our major hurdle right now will be to keep filament properly dry, as I read TPU can get quite finicky with that.
I hadn’t thought of the printing speed yet, though - appreciate the help!
For keeping it dry I got myself this one (currently 10% discount):
eSUN Trockenbox für 3D Drucker Filament, eBOX Lite 3D Drucker Hält das Filament Trockenbox, Staubdicht und Feuchtigkeitsdicht, Kompatibel mit 1.75mm, 2.85mm, 3.00mm Filament https://amzn.eu/d/1zvqBJd
It works really good so far
Looks great!
I made a TPU phone case a while back as well with some neat custom cutouts on the back. I really liked it, but the heavy use/touching made the case get off-color and dirty looking, especially on the edges, with no way to clean it off.
I know you can clean tpu with diluted bleach, did you try anything that harsh?
I’m guessing you could clear coat it to keep it cleaner for longer